


Normal Magic

by thegriffin88



Series: Handler Chronicles [2]
Category: Infamous Iron Man - Fandom, Iron Man (Comics), Marvel, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: And what really went on there, Character Study, Doomworld, Gen, Handler, Handler freely admits she has a thing for people who can do magic, Infamous Iron Man, Magic, best friends who are magicians, ex-boyfriends who are sorcerers, husbands who are wizards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 19:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13887219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegriffin88/pseuds/thegriffin88
Summary: Handler: Agent of Whatever (Formerly HAMMER, Formerly SHIELD) and Dr. Strange muse over recent events concerning a mutual friends. Takes place after Infamous Iron Man Vol. 2.





	Normal Magic

 Handler sat on the landing pad of Project PEGASUS, legs straight out, hands bracing behind her and looking towards the setting sky, smiling. But, Strange noticed, it wasn’t her usual wry smile, or even her gleeful grin. It was almost…sad.  
 “Are you waiting for him to call you?” he asked.  
 “Maybe…mostly I’m thinking.” she replied. Then she turned to him, the corners of her lips quirking into her normal, nearly cat-like, grin. “You know Stevie, you and me are the only people in the world who have seen him like that.”  
 Strange regarded his ex-girlfriend (but still very good friend and ally) and nodded.  
 “It’s more amazing that he trusts you, you know.” he said, “With me, it’s more of a colleague thing, we are both powerful magicians.”   
 “What can I say; I got a thing for magic.” Handler winked. “Look at my husband.”   
 “I have been meaning to talk to Loki, actually; if you can get a hold of him that is.”   
 At first it had been odd to Strange, to see Handler wed a man who spent large amounts of time away from her when their closer to home relationship had failed. But then, he figured that both Handler and Loki valued their independence, their need to be alone, sometimes for a month or more. Considering her friendship not only with Doom, but Dakken and Venom, her almost motherly care for Robbie Baldwin who now went by Penance, her marriage to the God of Mischief and capable sorcerer, if once destructor of New York, seemed almost normal.  
 And that’s what Handler was, a new kind of normal. The kind where an appearance by Zimo of all people would cause her to huff and roll her eyes like just seeing him had ruined her Baileys. A normal where she would start a spat with Namor just because she heard he was in the area. (According to her, he somehow started it, long ago. In a country far far away.)  
 “He’s around, I’ll let him know...if you’ll tell me what it’s about.”  
 “Doom is able to teleport you to wherever he is on a whim. I have to ask: are you his familiar?”  
 Handler laughed at that, “Heck no! Not after the Valeria incident. I had to learn that from Sue after I got back from my honeymoon. Took me about a year of flowers and edible arrangements to persuade them to stop being mad. Plus, I’m sure Loki’s got me protected against stuff like that. I’m kind of…warded.”  
 “Then how is he able to summon you?”  
 Handler turned to the sky again, a gorgeous amber color, with hints of pink. “I don’t really know. I…feel him, calling to me and…I just accept. Then I’m there. Wherever he needs me. I think it’s built on how much we trust each other.”  
 “If that much is true,” Strange said, “this means there’s a whole other aspect of magic we have yet to uncover.”  
 “You gotta watch more TV Stevie, if ya did you’d learn that friendship is magic.” Handler winked.    
 There was a silence between them, only punctuated by the sound of the ocean breaking against the cliffs.   
 “Did he tell you about Doomworld?” Strange asked.   
 “Of course he did.” Handler replied, a little less chipper.  
 “Did he tell you where you were in that universe?”   
 Handler sighed deeply. “No. No he hasn’t told me that. It was the first thing I asked.”  
 “Do you think it’s because you died?”  
 Handler shook her head. “No he would have told me if I had died. Even if he had been the one to pull the trigger he would have told me.”  
 Strange cocked an eyebrow and Handler went on to explain:  
 “Part of our relationship is that we accept that we’re on opposite sides of the battlefield. We’ve always accepted if any of us got in the other’s way we’d do what we had to to achieve our goals, even if that meant death. So he would have told me if I had died in Doomworld.”   
 “So if you’re not dead…”  
 “I’m probably with Loki on Asgard or something; which is scarier, honestly. On Earth, Victor has always been the person I could go to for protection. But, if I went to Loki, if I had to escape Earth, that means the worst happened. I’ve always stipulated that I was friends with Victor, not Doom; and the only reason I’d ever break off our relationship was if something happened to the Victor side of his personality. People don’t understand. Doom is the one who wants to take over the world but Victor, Victor is the one who wants to build a better one. He just wants the world to be a better place, not that I’m condoning his previous methods of going about it or anything. So if Doomworld me left Earth, it was because Doom had taken over and Victor was gone. It was because he had forgotten his true goals and I think that scares him. I think that’s why he shed the Doom personality. He doesn’t want to risk that happening again. It’s why he took Tony’s armor. He’s looking for another alter ego to fix all of this.”  
 “Because Victor is still just scared Romani boy?”  
 “With nearly god level magical powers, but yeah, pretty much. Victor failed to free his mother’s soul from Mephisto, Doom succeeded. I mean, when has Dr. Steven Strange, plastic surgeon, saved the world?”  
 Strange smirked at that. “Fine, you win. I understand. But he can’t be Iron Man-Iron Doom forever.”  
 “I know, I can only hope he has a back-up plan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Loving the Infamous Iron Man arc so I've been writing for it. After the end of Vol. 2 Handler and her ex-boyfriend Dr. Strange talk about magic, think about life, and ponder what went on in Doomworld. 
> 
> A lot of the Doomworld stuff is speculation and that's partly because I haven't looked up anything on it. I know that Victor said he had, at one point in some alternate timeline, achieved his goals and found that he still wasn't satisfied. Somehow he was able to reverse this, probably with the help of the alternate Sorcerer Supreme of yet another universe who was Tony Stark. (it was weirdly normal for the Marvel universe actually) He never actually named the universe where he conquered the world but I'm calling it Doomworld because if you've read Doomwars you'll know that's what he calls his plan there when he speaks to the Panther Goddess of Wakanda, Bast. Bast, btw, accepts that his actions do more good than harm when compared to all of human history and all the other 'tyrants'. She, an actual Goddess, at first fully intent on just eating him, accepts that his vision is a noble one. 
> 
> Plus I've changed so many things about the universe, cinematic and comic which are two different designated universes actually, that it's fine I can do pretty much whatever I want. 
> 
> I love exploring the friendship between these two characters. It can be summed up in so many quips. 
> 
> Tony: Like, what kind of friends? Facebook friends?
> 
> Handler: No, but only because he doesn't have a Facebook.


End file.
